Andprayin the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds ofprayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep onpraying for all thesaints. Ephesians 6:18

Last week I wrote about petitions as prayer. Petitions are requests we make to God about our own needs and concerns. Intercessory petitions are appeals to God on behalf of the needs and concerns of other people. This is my topic this week.

I find it best when interceding on an ongoing basis for someone to determine first whether the Lord is calling me to undertake this ministry. I used to assume it was my responsibility to pray recurrently for someone if they asked me to do so. But I’ve reached the conclusion that the Lord does not want me to pray for a particular person or situation out of a sense of obligation. Instead, he wants me to pray because he is calling me to do so. Sometimes I forget that I am accountable only to God and not also to my often-overwrought sense of responsibility.

Therefore, the first step in attempting to intercede for someone in prayer, on an ongoing basis, is to ask the Lord if this is what he wants you to do. If you feel a sense of heaviness when you think about praying for that person, there is a chance God is not calling you to this ministry. Ask him first what that heaviness is all about. Possibly there is something in the way. Could there be an emotional or spiritual issue in your own life that needs to be addressed first? Maybe you have some underlying prejudice or resentment toward the person for whom you are attempting to intercede. Or, perhaps you are not being called to pray for him or her.

...and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. The Revelation to John 5:8

Although intercessory prayer is something every Christian is called to do we are not necessarily called to pray, on an ongoing basis, for every person who asks us for prayer. It may be that God prefers someone other than you to pray for a particular person. Perhaps he has someone else in mind for whom he wants you to intercede. However, if the Lord keeps placing that person on your heart, in a way that does not feel like an unpleasant burden, then he’s probably calling you to pray.

The next step is to ask the Holy Spirit to show you how and for what to pray. You may think the need is so obvious you don’t need to ask, however, it’s a good thing to ask for direction, anyway. Recently, while praying on someone’s behalf, exactly as she had asked, the Holy Spirit recalled to my mind a verse from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. I had a sense I was to pray that verse for her and not for the specific request she had given me. And, every time now I pray for her, using that verse as a template, I feel a sense of joy. This tells me I’m following the Spirit’s direction.

If the Lord directs you to pray for someone, but you still find yourself at a loss for how to pray, the following suggestions may be of help to you:

Ask the Lord to help you see the person for whom you are interceding through his eyes. As I mentioned several weeks ago in my post about confessing our standing before God, he sees us from the point of view of the end of time, when the good work he’s begun in us is brought to completion. In God’s eyes we are radiantly robed in his righteousness right now. When we view someone from this perspective, it sometimes changes how we pray for them.

Visualize an outcome to the person’s need, or a solution to their problem, which is in keeping with God’s word. If it is for physical or emotional healing, imagine God’s hand on him or her healing their hurt or injury and pray accordingly. If it is for the restoration of a strained relationship, imagine him or her with an outstretched hand to the person from whom they are estranged.

Pray phrases or verses from Scripture. For example, if you are praying for someone who needs discernment or direction, try this verse from Isaiah, which I’ve reworked for prayer: “Lord, whether ______ turns to the right or to the left, cause his/her ears to hear a voice behind him/her, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (30:21) I just love using Scripture verses in prayer. I keep a notebook full of my favorite verses for this purpose.

Pray as Paul does in some of his letters – for blessings from the Holy Spirit. When Paul offers prayers for the recipients of his letters he sometimes prays for them to receive blessings from the Holy Spirit. We can take his prayers and make them our own, by asking for: God’s power, so that it will work in the person for whom we are interceding (Colossians 1:11, 29; Ephesians 1:19, 3:16); Knowledge of God’s will (Colossians 1:9); The gifts of wisdom and revelation so that he/ she may know God better (Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:10); God’s hope and spiritual riches (Ephesians 1:18); or, The power to grasp fully the love of Christ so that he/she may be filled with everything God has for him/her (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Pray while singing a hymn or praise song. I do this sometimes during worship on Sunday mornings, if a particular verse or phrase inspires me.

Pray without words. Simply envision the person in your mind and hold him/her up before God, who loves him/her unfailingly.

I suggest that your final step when praying for someone be the same as for when you pray for yourself: Anticipate God’s answer by thanking him for it and conclude by asking that God’s will be done, for his glory and for the good of the person for whom you are interceding.

9 Responses to Prayer (ninth in a series)

Thank you for these words. I have been thinking of someone and felt the pull to reach out to them and let them know I was praying for them. This person is not someone I know well, although God clearly wants me to send them a message of love and hope. I feel a great sense of joy and happiness!! Thanks again.
Also, my daughter, Holly, left for Africa yesterday. She will be there for 5 weeks doing research. Even if you are not called to pray for her continually, please pray for her to be protected and that she will have a wonderful learning experience. She is with another girl and her name if Jennifer. Please pray for her in the same way. Thank you.

Thank you, Anne. I will certainly lift up Holly and Jennifer to the Lord in prayer. I’m sure it’s hard to see her go so far away, but thankfully she’s never far from our heavenly Father. (Psalm 139) I hope that is a comfort to you. Claudia

I am most certainly glad you pray this way. That’s the way I want someone to pray for me. None of us really knows what we need all the time from the Lord. But His Spirit does know, and since He knows all things, following His leading in prayer is the way to pray. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, and if we take His lead and pray only as His Spirit leads us, we are doing the same thing in prayer.

As always, Claudia, you offer wonderful twists and turns to an everyday act. I was very encouraged by the way you presented prayer! Sometimes, as with any relationship, and especially with God…as He is so mighty…we want to be pleasing. We want our prayers to be articulate, meaningful and quite simply, “heard.” Prayer is so powerful and I very much enjoyed how to approach my conversations with God in a different way. In Christ, Marion
ps….You are doing an outstanding job! Keep it up…it makes my week! 🙂

Your ideas are such a wonderful mix of inspiring and practical. Maybe they are inspiring because they are so practical that they are clearly do-able, and that itself is encouraging. I love the idea of the notebook of Scripture verses to pray with.

Thank you, Siri. I learned about Scripture prayers from reading Beth Moore’s book, Get Out of That Pit. I’ll be writing more about using Scripture this way in the near future. I’m delighted you find the list of suggestions helpful. I wish I had had a list like that when my father was dying of cancer 15 years ago. I prayed back then, asking for the outcome I wanted, but I never thought to seek out how God wanted me to pray for him. In the years since that time the Lord has taught me a lot about prayer — and the list is the fruit of his teaching and also what I’ve learned from others about intercessory prayer.

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Quotable Corner

"Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees every thing in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is, after all, an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul." Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 263

"After a man is saved, God will continue His training efforts. 'Putting on Christ' and Christ 'being formed in us' and having 'the mind of Christ' certainly do not mean simply reading what Christ said and attempting to put it into practice. Rather they mean that a real Person, not something remote and abstruse, comes to you day after day and 'interfering with you very self' shapes you into a being with a life similar to God's own. The command to the Christian to be perfect is no hyperbole but precisely what Christ meant. He begins on earth a process that will be consummated in heaven, but it is a process and will not allow you successfully to play the hypocrite with your naked self. God will not allow you to take the attitude, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary Chap.' His plan is indeed to make you into a heavenly being. This may account for the rough time Christians go through, for He is turning every one of his children into 'a little Christ.' He is not like a trainer who teaches a horse to jump better; He is in the business of turning horses into winged creatures." Clyde Kilby, The Christian Word of C. S. Lewis, pp. 181-182.

"Wounded healers must forsake the prideful tendency to be defined only in terms of strengths and wholeness. They must will authenticity, especially where they're still weak and tempted. That liberates the witness of God's incredible sufficiency and makes real that sufficiency through others who mediate Christ's grace and truth." Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness, p, 191

"The historical roots of the theory of evolution are quite complex. But apart from a newly awakened fascination with the "laws of history" (Herder, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche) there was, no doubt, another ingredient: the Industrial Revolution with its concept of advance by improved workability. The idea that in the vast factory of nature things which do not work well are discarded for things which work better arises out of the mood of the nineteenth century. The entire universe was made to fit the drab climate of Manchester. While the pic of Genesis, with its powerful poetic form, was rejected as "anthropomorphic," an evolutionist concept of how things came about is tinged with the ephemeral of the laboratory and the market place." Karl Stern, The Flight from Woman. p. 291

"When people are so self-convinced that the world needs their accomplishments more than their sanctity and prayer-depth, they never do face squarely the overwhelming figure of Christ and his message in life and word." Thomas Dubay, S. M., The Evidential Power of Beauty, p. 301

"Ministries which attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer's union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair, and both of these conditions are inimical to spiritual life." Richard F. Lovelace in "Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal"

"Every Christian experience is an experience of faith; that is, it is an experience of what we have not...We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love we trust." P. T. Forsyth in "Christian Perfection"

"The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

"To believe in [Jesus Christ] and not to believe in what He believed, not to love what He loved and not to desire what He desired, is not to believe in Him." Alexander Schmemann in "Of Water & the Spirit"

"Because victory is his, therefore it is ours. If only we will not try to gain the victory but simply to maintain it, then we shall see the enemy utterly routed. We must not ask the Lord to enable US to overcome the enemy, nor even look to HIM to overcome, but praise him because he has already done so; he IS victor. It is all a matter of faith in him. If we believe the Lord, we shall not pray so much but rather we shall praise him more. The simpler and clearer our faith in him, the less we shall pray in such situations and the more we shall praise." Watchman Nee in "Sit, Walk, Stand."